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International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research

Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 88-95, May 2015

Student-Centered Learning in a First Year

Undergraduate Course

Saras Krishnan
INTI International University
Malaysia

Abstract. Student-centered learning (SCL) may or may not be the ideal

choice of learning method in certain parts of the world depending on
many factors including the different learning cultures. This study
discusses some of the factors that could have influenced students’
responses towards SCL in an undergraduate mathematics course in
Malaysia. The student factor discussed in this study is learning habits
and preferences whereas the contextual factors are mathematics content
or topic, time of intervention and the teacher. The study found that
students generally responded positively towards SCL because it is more
fun and provides opportunities for sharing of ideas, among other
factors. However, when it came to assessment the students preferred the
traditional form of assessment instead of being assessed in a SCL
environment. This is primarily because they feel it is easier to score in
the former but in the latter other group members contribute towards a
student’s score as well.

Keywords: contextual factors; group work; student-centered

assessment; student factor

Introduction
Student-centered learning (SCL) has also been known as learner-centered
education (e.g., Schweisfurth, 2011), independent learning (e.g., Vale, Davies,
Weaven & Hooley, 2010) and student-centered team-based learning (e.g., Zain,
Rasidi & Abidin, 2012). Dating back to as early as 1905, some of the proponents
of SCL are Hayward, Dewey, Froebel, Piaget and Knowles (Yusoff, Karim,
Othman, Mohin & Rahman, 2013). Among others, SCL involves students
collaborating in groups, making connections between ideas and use of
scaffolding activities for mathematical learning (Vale et al., 2010).

SCL subscribes to the constructivist pedagogy where the teacher does not
transmit knowledge to the students but the students construct the knowledge
themselves (Baeten, Kyndt, Struyven & Dochy, 2010; Zain et al., 2012). The
teacher’s role in a SCL environment is as a facilitator and a resource person
(McLean & Gibbs, 2010; Yusoff et al., 2013). As such, the responsibility and

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power shifts from the teacher, in the traditional teaching environment, to the
student, in the student-centered learning environment (McLean & Gibbs, 2010;
Wright, 2011).

In a SCL environment, learning is an active process that induces deep learning

and understanding through increased responsibility, accountability and
autonomy on the students’ part (Baeten et al., 2010; Farrell & McAvinia, 2012).
Instead of being passive listeners and submissive recipients of knowledge,
students acquire knowledge by actively participating and getting involved in the
learning process. Given that the students have a bigger role to play in a SCL
environment compared to the traditional environment, better interaction and
interdependence between the teacher and the students need to be fostered.
However, the teacher’s role is not to be undermined. On the contrary, the
teacher has a more important role to play than before in view of the
interconnectedness of SCL and good teaching (Farrell & McAvinia, 2012).

The motive of assessing students in a SCL environment is to identify their

learning gaps and potential areas of development in order to enhance their
learning particularly through feedback approaches (Noonan & O’Neill, 2012).
Written assignments, portfolios and reflective journals provide better insights
into the students’ actual learning instead of scores on tests and multiple choice
instruments that perhaps only superficially reflect a student’s depth of
knowledge and understanding. Logs, projects and group work are other tools
that can be used to assess SCL.

An important element in a SCL environment is learning through doing and

actively participating in the learning activities as opposed to learning by being
passive recipients of knowledge. Working collaboratively with peers is another
important element because it creates an atmosphere for participation and
involvement in the lessons, and provides opportunities for sharing ideas and
opinions. Learning through doing and collaborating has been found to increase
students’ motivation and confidence in learning mathematics besides making
the mathematics learned meaningful to them (Yusoff et al., 2013; Zain et al.,
2012).

Conversely, lack of engagement and involvement from the students will result
in an unsuccessful SCL as well as lack of guidance and motivation from the
teacher as the facilitator in a SCL environment. Baeten et al. (2010) categorized
factors that influence the success of a SCL into contextual factors (e.g.,
assessment and institutional characteristics), perceived contextual factors (e.g.,
clarity of goals and relevance to professional practice) and student factors (e.g.,
educational experiences and preferences for teaching methods).

Implementation Of SCL In An Undergraduate Course

SCL has not escaped educationalists’ criticism as well as its implementation is
not without challenges. This study attempts to identify some of the challenges
and questions to be considered when implementing SCL in an undergraduate
course. The study involves thirteen undergraduate students in a Calculus

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 90

course. The mode of SCL chosen is group work and this was implemented two
times in the semester. The first group work involved the topic Functional
Models and was conducted in the third week of fourteen weeks of lessons.
Meanwhile, the second group work involved the topic Integration and was
conducted in week twelve.

The study gathers some baseline data from students’ feedback after the two SCL
sessions. In particular, students’ feedback on both sets of group work was
obtained by asking them to fill up a simple questionnaire with a Yes/No answer.
The questions on the questionnaire attempted to find out:
(1) if the students enjoyed the SCL session.
(2) if group work helped the students to understand the topic.
(3) if group work had motivated the students to learn mathematics.
(4) if by working in groups, students are able to remember important
mathematical concepts.
(5) if the students are able to provide input and share ideas in their groups.
(6) if working in groups had built the students’ confidence in doing
mathematics.
(7) if the students preferred the student-centered assessment to traditional
quizzes/tests.

Table 1: Percentages of responses

Group Work 1 Group Work 2
(%) (%)
Enjoy 84.6 53.8
Understand 76.9 69.2
Motivation 69.2 46.2
Remember 61.5 53.8
Ideas 92.3 92.3
Confidence 38.5 61.5
Assessment 23.1 30.8

Table 1 displays the descriptive analysis of the results of the feedback using
SPSS. Although the analysis is relatively simple, the results shed light on the
dynamics of the undergraduate students in this course that influenced the
implementation of SCL. Overall, the table shows that with the exception of
motivation element in the second group work and the confidence element in the
first group work, more than 50% of the students displayed positive feelings with
regards to the group work. However, in general there is a decline in the
percentages from the first group work to the second group work. Moreover,
despite the students’ positive feedback on the SCL, they preferred being
assessed in the traditional form of assessment compared to the SCL assessment.

In detail, the table shows that:

(1) more than half of the class enjoyed the session whereby the percentage is
higher for the first group work.

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(2) more than half of the class feel that the group work helped them
understand the topic whereby the percentage is higher for the first group
work.
(3) more than half of the class feel that the first group work motivated their
learning but less than 50% feel that the second group work motivated
their learning.
(4) more than half of the class agree that they are able to remember important
concepts by working in groups whereby the percentage is higher for the
first group work.
(5) more than 90% agree that they are able to provide input and share ideas in
their groups both for the first and second group work.
(6) less than 50% feel that the first group work built their confidence in doing
mathematics but more than 50% feel that the second group work built
their confidence in doing mathematics.
(7) both times, less than half the class preferred the student-centered
assessment to quizzes/tests.

Discussion Of Results
SCL has been found to be an effective learning approach that develops better
study skills among the students such as the higher order thinking skills and the
creative thinking skills (Zain et al., 2012). In addition, there is increased
motivation and confidence among the students as they find SCL to be a more
interesting and exciting learning approach. Similarly, students in this study
agreed that the group work motivated them to learn mathematics and built their
confidence in doing mathematics but the percentages differed for the first group
work and the second group work. Although the students seem to be less
motivated in the second group work, their confidence level was higher than the
first time they worked in groups.

Furthermore, students in this undergraduate course still preferred the traditional

form of assessment compared to the student-centered assessment despite the
positive feedback given on the SCL. In the following paragraphs, the paper
discusses some student and contextual factors as described by Baeten et al.
(2010) that are believed to have contributed towards students’ responses to the
questionnaire.

Learning habits and preferences

Habit is a strong factor in influencing one’s action and the way one reacts
towards a new circumstance. Students who have been successful in a traditional
teacher-empowered classroom environment may exhibit initial resistance to SCL
as suggested by some researchers (e.g., Wright, 2011). Their past experience is
probably telling them that they will only do well in the former type of teaching
approach. In fact, being so comfortable and accustomed to the ‘old way of
learning’, these students’ initial reaction to SCL is a sense of loss because now
they are expected to learn on their own without someone telling them the facts,
and the correct methods and techniques.

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The students in this course need to obtain certain grades that will allow them to
continue their degree abroad. In addition, five of the thirteen students in this
study i.e. 38.46% are government sponsored students that is they have obtained
exceptionally good results in their year eleven public examination in Malaysia.
As these students have been subjected to eleven years of teacher-centered
teaching and have found it to be highly successful, they would automatically
exhibit initial rejection towards SCL for fear of not doing well in their
assessment as suggested by the percentages of responses in Table 1. As one
student commented,

I enjoyed the sessions but the fact that it carries marks and that it will
not work if everyone doesn’t cooperate, I don’t know…

Content
Baeten et al. (2010) believed that content of the course or the discipline of study
has an influence on students’ approach to SCL. In particular, they found that
past studies generally argue that students are able to exhibit deep approaches to
learning in the arts and social sciences related subjects compared to the science
and engineering subjects although studies contradicting this fact exist. Functions
is a relatively easier topic as perceived by students compared to Integration and
this may have contributed towards the lower percentages of responses for the
second group work.

Time Of Intervention
Students in this study responded more positively to SCL at the beginning of the
semester and less favorably towards the end of the semester despite having
more time to interact with each other and to get familiarized with the course.
Two factors could have contributed to this. One is the content of the group work
as mentioned above. Second factor is the apprehension of not doing well in the
assessment as the final examination approaches and each student are aware of
how well or how badly they have done in other assessments. In fact, a student
who preferred the traditional form of assessment wrote that,

…it would be easier to score marks.

Teacher
The success of SCL relies heavily on the students’ ability to work in groups
which in turn is dependent on the individual student’s personality and social
skills. Froyd and Simpson (2010) argue that students often lack the skills to work
in groups and thus asking them to do so will trigger initial resistance. It is
important then that the teacher creates meaningful activities at appropriate level
of difficulty and strives to create a supportive learning environment for the
students.

During both group works in this study, there was minimal involvement from
the teacher. As the practice of SCL is relatively new to the teacher and the
learning institution in concern, the teacher may not have the necessary skills to
facilitate such group works. It is imperative that the teacher is equipped with the
skills and the expertise that is needed in a SCL environment prior to its

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implementation because although, the students have greater autonomy in a SCL

environment, the role of the teacher as the mediator is crucial.

Conclusion
Wright (2011) lists some of the benefits of SCL in the higher education to be
helping students to become empowered, confident and self-motivated. SCL also
helps students to develop study skills such as time management,
communication, critical thinking and problem solving skills. Likewise, this study
shows that students in the undergraduate Calculus course responded positively
towards SCL. One of the students mentioned,

…it is less stressful, quite fun.

Since SCL allows active interaction and sharing of ideas (Zain et al., 2012), the
students are more involved and engaged in their learning. It was also observed
that besides working with their own group members, the students conferred
with members from other groups. In other words, there were also inter-group
discussions, similar to the the observation made in the study by Zain et al.
(2012).

The student factor discussed in this paper is learning habits and preferences.
However, it is important to point out that this factor is most likely to be
intertwined with other student factors mentioned by Baeten et al. (2010) such as
individual student’s personality, social style and coping strategies that would
have contributed to the overall group dynamics. The importance of these factors
is reflected in this student’s statement,

Whether or not one enjoys/benefits from this kind of session, really

depends on the group that he/she is in. Initially I thought it doesn’t
matter but a lot of things are at stake.

Apart from the student factors listed by Baeten et al. (2010), another factor that is
crucial in the learning process is the students’ belief system and perhaps future
studies can look into how to change the students’ belief system to embrace SCL
more optimistically especially in the developing countries.

Further, one the contextual factors mentioned by Baeten et al. (2010) is the
duration of intervention. In addition, this study looks at the time of intervention
which is equally important because it makes a difference whether the SCL is
conducted in the beginning or the end of the semester and in which semester of
a student’s undergraduate program. The other two contextual factors discussed
in this paper are content and teacher. Although, the secondary school
mathematics curriculum in Malaysia is designed to develop problem solving
and mathematical thinking skills in the students, among others, the teachers’
practices are still largely teacher-centered as suggested by Zakaria, Chin and
Daud (2010). As such, the teachers’ mind set and belief system need to be
changed as well to ensure SCL can be implemented successfully at the higher
levels of education. The teacher should be able to become a participant and co-

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learner in the SCL and have the expertise to create more meaningful assessments
that are able to assess students’ higher order thinking skills (Powell, 2013).

The results of this study is in agreement to the argument made by Schweisfurth

(2011) that the implementation of SCL may not be as successful in the
developing countries due to the different learning cultures. The study included
all the developing countries and some impoverished areas in the more
developed countries. Among others, the study quotes Altinyelken (2010) who
found that Ugandan English teachers prefer the teacher-centered teaching due to
lack of skills in the English language.

More importantly, Schweisfurth (2011) points out about the ‘culturally appropriate
distance’ between the teacher and the students in some of these countries that
serve as a barrier to SCL. In Malaysia, teachers are seen as authoritative figures
as with the parents, religious leaders and the rulers. Although in general the
present day students are more vocal and the teachers too are more aware to the
morphing culture and influences of the outside world, the need to score good
grades to be able to further their study abroad is a stronger determinant in their
choice of learning for this particular group of students.

Then questionnaire used in this study has a Cronbach alpha value of 0.731 and
0.590 for the first and second data sets respectively. The low Cronbach alpha
value that is lower than 0.70 could be due to low number of items in the
questionnaire (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011) or the small sample size (Yurgudúl,
2008). Future work with respect to this study will be to develop a more detailed
questionnaire with Likert-type responses and to have structured interviews with
selected students to gain a better insight to students’ feedback on the SCL
approaches. The developed questionnaire will be tested for validity and
reliability. In addition, a larger sample size will be taken for the quantitative
analysis.

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© 2015 The author and IJLTER.ORG. All rights reserved.